The picturesque 17th-century building sits directly over Stock Beck at the northern edge of Ambleside.
By the Victorian period, it was considered a 'curious relic' and 'one which every artist sketches as he passes by'. One of those artists who paused to paint Bridge House was JMW Turner.
The house is a 'one up, one down' design, with two small rooms linked by an external stair. The roof is made of traditional Lake District slate, with small tiles at the ridge and progressively larger tiles towards the eaves.
Bridge House had doors opening onto each bank so people could pass directly through the house and cross over the beck below. The rear door was later blocked and a chimney inserted but you can see traces of the original 17th-century doorway.
In the 18th century, Bridge House was used as a counting house for a pair of mills that stood nearby. Since then it was put to a variety of uses; it was, in turn, a weaver's shop, cobbler's shop, an antique shop, a chair maker's shop, and a tearoom. It was when the building became a tearoom in the Victorian period that a cast-iron stove was inserted in the rear wall where the doorway had been.
the popular author Beatrix Potter, who lived at nearby Far Sawrey, visited Bridge House in the 1920s when the house was in a poor state of repair and was threatened with demolition. In 1926 a local group including Potter's husband William Heelis raised money to buy Bridge House and gave it to the recently-formed National Trust.
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